Mayors, leaders gather to tout plan for extending Vision 2025 tax

Mayors of several Tulsa County cities are touting a plan to extend the Vision 2025 sales tax which expires next year, but with a twist.

The idea is to let the county tax expire, and replace it with an equivalent tax in each of the cities in the county.

That would give each city a lot more latitude on how to spend the money, and would also save administrative costs the county's currently shelling out in order to track and disburse the funds.

Mayor Lonnie Sims of Jenks was among the several leaders who gathered Tuesday for a news conference to announce the plan.

"For so long, we kind of waited around for the feds to give us money, or private investment to give us money. I think Vision renewal gives us the opportunity as river cities to go capture a piece of that, and really control our own destiny," he told KRMG.

Tulsa City Councilor Anna America explained that one of the issues with the Vision 2025 structure has been convincing people in Sand Springs that Broken Arrow needs a new fire station, for example.

"This way, we can work together, we can be collaborative on the things that make sense," she said, "(like) the river -- which I'm sure if that's included in this will go over several communities -- but each community then will really have the opportunity to set their own priorities."

She also noted the cost savings as a good argument for the new approach.

"Because of doing it on that county-wide level, we had to pay a fee," she explained. "So there was an additional fee on top of that to have somebody collect it, and then say 'okay this is going to pay for this in Jenks, and this is going here.'"

Each city has agreed to hold elections on the same day to let citizens vote on the tax extension.

The date for that election has not been set.